The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 400: Keith Hawk & AJ Hawk - The Life Experiences That Shape Our Character

Episode Date: January 4, 2021

Text LEARNERS to 44222 for more... Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12 The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk Episode #400 with Keith Hawk & AJ Hawk Notes: I sourced questions from members of my Leadership Circle, friends, listeners, and colleagues for this episode... How does Keith continue to feel impactful after retirement? KH: "It's like I have a paper route. I work a little bit in the mornings, get my work done, and then I can go have fun with my friends. I work on a few boards, do voice over work, and know how to hit the post." What has AJ learned from working with Pat McAfee? "I learned to trust my instincts and not try to be somebody I'm not." What's the best way to make introductions? AJ: "Text (message) intros are so much better. They are more personal." From Leadership Circle member, Amanda Wilson: "What habit do you admire the most in each other/best attribute?" Pistol about AJ: "He's an unbelievable teammate. He has earned the respect of all his peers. I respect his intensity to prepare." Pistol about Ryan: "A huge preparation guy. His focus on other people. He has more of an outer focus now. And a huge intensity around growth." "Gotta change, Gotta grow." AJ about Pistol: Consistency. He wakes up early. I never saw him asleep. He never made us do anything. I want to live up to that standard. I don't want my kids to see me asleep. And universally, everyone loves him." AJ about Ryan: "You're a mini-version of Pistol with your consistency. So detail oriented. Such a leader and not afraid to hold people accountable. People have confidence that you'll take them where they want to go." Ryan about Pistol: Absolute selflessness. Reminds me of my wife, Miranda. A willingness to always help others succeed and will do anything for them. Ryan about AJ: A relentless work ethic. A drive to be there for the people who depend on him. Whenever I talk with teammates of AJ, they all say the same thing, "That's my guy. I know he'll be where he's supposed to be when he's supposed to be there. I can depend on him." He shows up to work everyday and gets it done. Being selfless: Pistol - "My success is better and richer if it follows other people's success." From Jeff Leung (Sr. Engineer at Facebook): "As the father of two young boys, I would love to hear how you and your brother AJ grew up in a way that you cheer for each other more than compete?" A mutual love and respect for each others work. An appreciation for what the other does. From Doug Meyer, Co-Founder/CEO of Brixey & Meyer: "What was your reaction when you heard Ryan was  leaving a high paying job at a large company to take a substantial pay cut to start a Leadership Advisory practice at Brixey & Meyer?" Pistol: "Joy, fun, fulfillment. I was so excited for him." AJ: "Of course. He's gonna kill it." Give an example how you handled when one of your kids wanted to do something but you thought it was a mistake? "When Ryan was at Miami, I probably pushed him too hard to transfer so that he would get another shot to be a starting QB after losing the job to Ben Roethlisberger. I sometimes have thoughts that he could have moved positions and become Julian Edelman." From Nate DeMars (Founder/Owner of Pursuit) - "You guys have all moved onto what I guess you could consider second careers recently… How do you approach starting over as a novice in a new field?" "There is no excuse to not learn everything about what you want to do. There is so much out there to read and watch and people to talk to. If you don't learn it, it's your fault." Find something you care about, that you're passionate about, and pursue that. "Deal with imposter syndrome when you're new. There's never been a better time to learn something new." Life experiences that have shaped you. Pistol, what experiences shaped AJ/Ryan? Playing for the legendary Bob Gregg and Ron Ullery. They molded you and helped you: Faced the requirement to prepare a lot Learned how to be a great teammate Learned to compete hard Learned to take tough, critical feedback, became coachable Learned how to be a leader How to deal with great teammates, but bad coaches? AJ: "It doesn't help to complain and be negative. Be quiet. Do your job." And strive to learn from those who aren't good at their job so that you don't repeat what they do. The Rex Caswell exercise: When you're new, write in a journal in two columns. One is for the great actions of your boss and the other is for the not helpful behaviors. Keep it with you and review it as you continue to get promoted. Pistol: "Wrap yourself in the mission. Don't wrap yourself in negativity." "It's the duty of the leader to be in a good mood." We conducted our first draft. The topic: Our favorite sports movies (listen to hear who we picked).

There is a video, I believe, of Kobe Bryant where he said, there is absolutely no excuse to not know everything about what you want to do. So if you want to be a broadcaster, if you want to be a podcaster, if you want to write a book, it is all out there. So it is your fault, yours and yours alone, if you don't aggressively pursue all that's out there in order to learn. and you can become great at something completely different. Welcome to a special 400th episode of the Learning Leaders Show presented by Rixie and Meyer. I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text learners to 4-4-222 in order to join tens of thousands of learning leaders from all over the world.

receive mindful Monday updates what I'm reading, writing, watching, thinking about. It'll also give you more details about how my book, Welcome to Management, will help you become a more effective leader. Text learners to 44222. Now on to tonight's featured leaders. Again, it's a special 400th episode. We did this for number 200. We did it for number 300. And now we're doing it to celebrate number 400. My guests are my dad Keith Hawk and my brother AJ Hawk. My dad Keith, also known as Pistol, recently retired, long-term role as a senior VP of sales leading over a thousand people for more than 30 years. He is now regularly speaking around the world on topics such as leadership, principled negotiation, consultative selling, and building thriving corporate cultures. He's a co-author

of two popular business books, Get Real Selling, and terrific five-star customer service. My other guest, my younger brother, A.J. Hawk, all-time leading tackler in Green Bay Packers history. He won a national championship at Ohio State University as a freshman.

He was voted captain of the Green Bay Packers Super Bowl winning team in the 2010-2011 season, and he was inducted in the Ohio State University Hall of Fame in 2019. Currently, he's a co-host on the Pat McAfee show, which airs weekdays on YouTube. A few of the topics we discussed, the phrase, got to change, got to grow, and why that is

imperative to what all three of us are doing as well as to what you are trying to do. And then how to be a great teammate, how to raise kids who root for each other's success, how to learn from excellent and bad bosses, how to start over in a new career and be a beginner dealing with imposter syndrome, and then the importance of loving your work. And we closed with something we have never done before. We had a draft. I'll leave some of the suspense for you to check it out at the end, but I think you'll enjoy. It was probably my favorite part of the conversation.

Ladies and gentlemen, we're celebrating number four. 400 with my dad, Keith Hawke and my brother, AJ Hawk. It's been two years since we recorded. I know age's math was way off at the end of the last time, which was 300. This is number 400. Catch me up on you both, last time we talked about retirement and then going on to your next career. And you're both still in that stage. So Pistle, how about you start now that you are two more years into the next

chapter after your first career at as a sales leader with thousands of people. Catch us up on what's been going on the past two years. Well, yeah, I used to have a job like that. And now I feel more like a paper, a guy with a paper route. But I meet it in a way. When you're a kid and you get a paper route, you work a little bit, right? You work every day, but you just deliver those papers and you get it done and you go play. find your friends and just do fun stuff through the day or perhaps go to school. And I kind of have a

paper out. I'm on a couple of corporate boards that I do a lot with, especially one of the boards and just in helping them and their business grow and be successful. That's fun for me, interesting. And I get to meet a lot of new people through that. In addition to that, I do something I always wanted to do from the time I started college at Ohio University as a communications major. I wanted to be in the broadcasting world in one way or the other. And through a lot of circumstances, a good friend of mine has a really exciting studio in which he records commercials. He records musical acts. And I've been doing voiceovers of all sorts of type for him on commercials for local companies, on community events and all sorts of stuff. So I get to go in and create with

my good buddy Terry O'Brien in his studio. So voiceovers are fun for me. And in addition, I'm occasionally doing things. I'll occasionally give a talk, although not as much as I did in the first couple of years of retirement. And I am speaking at an awful lot of retirement parties these days. Okay, to the voiceovers. Whether you give us some J.T. Hawkins, an example. I want to hear why you get hired to do voiceover work. Are you going to go back to college days or something recent? An example. We want to hear. hear it. It's fun and you'll do a commercial for a gym and they want you to be speaking in kind of an energetic, let's pump it up kind of a tone or you'll be doing a voice. Yeah, we got to hear.

A cannabis company. And they want you to be real PBS. Really? You've done some of those? Where are these? Where are these? How come we haven't heard? They're all local in the Dayton area. Yeah, Dayton area. Oh, well, okay. They're all internet based commercials. People put them to the Let's do the J.T. Hawkins. We got to hear when you were a college. It takes a while, man. I mean, the opening, my name in college on a radio show was J.T. Hawkins because Keith Hawke was too hard to say. Back in those days, they had disc jockeys. And there was a term called hit the post, right? You know this. AJ, you're a broadcaster. Hitting the post means at the beginning of a song, it's just instrumental. And the disc jockey would want to talk all the way through the instrumental. And he would successfully hit the post if he stopped talking precisely. when the vocals came in. And I always started my radio show with a song called September from Earth, Wind, and Fire because it gave me the time I needed to open my show. So I'd start with something along the lines of, this is the Hawk rapping at you. And I'll be, shoot, it's been too long. Well, you've got to try it again. Let's go. Here we go. This is the Hawk rapping at you,

and I'll be around for the next 90 minutes playing hit after hit, solid gold, all told. I'm giving it to you straight, so don't be late. I'll be around here, the sound of them bringing us all down. So do yourself a favor and listen to the band who can Earth, Wind and Fire. Wow. We found our clip. Okay. Nice. All right, Aege, what have you been doing the last two years? And not that. So thank goodness for Terry O'Brien because Pistol fumbled around with his mic and headphones for 30 minutes before we could start this thing. So I doubt he's getting any voice over work from the basement down there with your audio setup. Correct. It's good. Hey, it's good though. You know, you have to like delegate. We don't, we know our strength.

and weaknesses and tech is not mine either, so I have to lean on Burke. Everyone knows our oldest brother who does everything for all of us. But, oh, I'm doing the same type of broadcasting. I guess what I do is so random and just depends on the time of year. So I've worked as a college analyst working for college football analysts doing games as the color commentator. I think I had 10 games scheduled. I believe eight of them happened this year.

two of them were canceled because of COVID towards the end of the year was doing a lot of conference USA stuff and then once COVID hit back in March I started a show with Pat McAfee was called McAfee and Hawk Sports Talk. We did a thing just on YouTube basically and then it was on Westwood One with his radio show and then he moved over to Sirius starting this fall and he has a show 12 to 3 every day and I join him every day from 2 p.m. on and we ends at 3 o'clock on Sirius but we go after on his YouTube channel, which is the main thing that he's always pushing and wanting to put more stuff on YouTube. And it's been fun, man.

It's a sports talk show. And we kind of talk about everything. We have Aaron Rogers on every single Tuesday. It's been huge for us. And he's been awesome. But yeah, more of that. And I don't point on stopping that anytime soon. It's been a lot of fun.

One of the questions I get the most when your name comes up, age, is what's Pat really like? What's Pat like off the air? Pat, FaceTime, AJ, every day. So that's what he talks about it. I know you've texted me about Pat's epic FaceTime's like, what does he like when you are not recording your show? He is 100% always the same dude. And I tell people that all the time. They always ask me that whenever I run into people, they love to ask what he's like.

Oh, is he always that like energetic and just seems to be on it. And he's so quick with his responses and can string so many things together. But yeah, he is that guy all the time. He's always working. He's always doing some kind of show. He's always on a call trying to get to whatever his next step is. Like he's always reaching for something else. And I respect that a lot. And he's always the same guy. He really is. Like he's what you see on YouTube, on ESPN, game day, wherever it is, that's Pat. And he's always that way. And he's a really, really good dude. And he just happens to be supremely talented and very funny. All right, we've got, I crowdsource the questions for this one with members of my leadership circles, Facebook community and friends. So I'm going to share some of these questions and all three of us will answer some of them.

I am curious and it kind of speaks to our personalities and the differences between all of us. I would like to venture a guess and then you guys can tell me if I'm right. the amount of preparation that you did since I sent you some of these questions that listeners, fans, friends have sent to me. I'm guessing, this is just, let's see what happens. I'm guessing Pistol wrote 23 pages of notes, and I'm guessing age has not opened the email. How close, how close am I to being right? Well, Pistol held his notes up that he took. He printed out the email, it looks like, and then wrote his own handwritten notes on it. Have you opened it yet?

I would be surprised. I have opened it. This was so funny with you with you two. So this is what I love. Between you and Pistol, like you guys are the most squared away, detail oriented like the best at writing emails, thank you notes,

reaching out, cold calls, whatever it takes. Like you guys are awesome at that. And compared to you guys, like I'm just a, I'm a turd that doesn't do anything, like doesn't prepare and doesn't ever look at anything.

But then what how people view me, I guess in that I work with like other broadcasters and media members they they look at me like oh you're just a he's just a square that sits there and just overprepared and they're like people look at me like as someone that's over prepared for things wow hey can I can I jump in on that because h's uh and I don't give him a lot of critiques but one critique I've given him is he's overly modest and and I think it's an accurate criticism of you um it talks about you know I just show up and do stuff, not on his principal line of work, not on his principal line of work. Since he was in the third grade every single morning, he has been preparing for what he would ultimately become as an athlete.

And even when we were in North Carolina together, when you were getting one of your surgeries, the day of the surgery, he was going to have surgery on his foot. The first thing we did was we went to the gym in the hotel and he's on the treadmill. He's got a full weight workout and not just lifting but a cardio workout on the day that they're going to go to surgery on his foot. So the one thing, AJ, I will tell you, never lacks to, never stops doing is preparing for what's really important to him. So if he's out there getting ready to go do a job, I have full faith that he's going to prepare. All right. Like, we know he, we know he's good. Come on, Pistol. You're acting like it's a job interview. He's going to get gigs. We know he gets ready.

No, what a, a shirt pistol. Thank, thank you. It's great. But I guess I, how I prepare, I guess I got to figure out what works for me. So like if I have got to show it two o'clock today with Pat, like there's, we're going to talk about a game that happened last night and different things. So I have to watch. I watch the recap and write things down. I'll prepare like that. I, because I love it and I care about it. And any game I'm working, I'll prepare a ton. But I guess like when it's a situation like this where you sent some questions, people ask them email, I'm almost, I'm not scared to look at him. I looked at him. I glanced down it, but I didn't try to give it a whole lot of thought because I think if I'd try to think

about an answer before I actually give it organically, it comes out terrible. So I think I'm better in these kind of situations when it's just like, oh, okay, and I legit have to think about what the answer may be. Part of why I think you've developed really high level skill at that is because you've been doing it since probably what your eighth grade or freshman year. You've been interviewed by people on a consistent basis since you were, well, like 13 years old. And it still continues to this day. And so I think there's something to be said for getting so many repetit that's something, that that is why, is part of the reason why you're, you're almost better when the questions are just flying and then you answer on your feet and there's some humor

usually involved and then you can get deep in some places. I think that's the part. I mean, I opened up that way as a way obviously to be funny and share some of the differences between how we do. And the fact that this is something too that I've gotten used to. I do email introductions all the time, right? People say, hey, can I get, can you introduce to me there? I think two people would be a good match with you. We do texting introductions. We don't do email introductions. I remember when you introduced me to Andy Dalton,

you gave one of the most epic text introductions. I mean, I'm not going to repeat everything you said, but like some of the most epic texting introductions I've ever heard. And the thing though about that age, it was so good that I remember when Andy and I connected on the phone, he was just like, wow, that was awesome. Like I was excited to meet you.

And so I think there is something to be said for doing things differently. and knowing the people that you're working with have like, oh, no, they're not an email email introducer. They're a text introducer. And I think I've learned that from you, a really valuable skill. And I think it's much more personal. And so I've actually shifted some professional introductions to do it like you do it on texting. And I think it's brought people closer, faster by doing it that way.

I think so. It's more direct. And I don't know how much you're. like you guys are on your email compared to me but things get lost in email man like i'm gmail i have a gmail account however they restructured this thing like six months a year ago i can't ever find an email like i had to search through to find your zoom link you sent me like so that's 100% true at least when it comes to me like i i do better with texting and i think it does feel a little bit more personal yeah it does okay let's get to uh some of the questions uh do you want to go deep first actually

let's try this um there's so many good ones we're not going to get to all of them so apologize we're not going to get to all them let's go with Amanda wilson's first though so she's remember my leadership circle and has become a really good friend she said what habit do you admire the most in each other slash best attribute so pistol we're going to have you go first so what I admire you two now you two guys the notes go ahead yeah uh I'll with you, Ryan. You are the along the lines of what we've just been talking about. My preparation to go walk up on a stage, believe it or not, is closer to AJ's prep than yours. I tend to do more like I pray and hope things go well and try to have a few core thoughts in my head. You are an intense

preparation guy. And I think it shows great respect for the guests you have on your show, especially that you research them, you read their books, you read everything about them, you see everything about them on YouTube, anything you can, you gather up and you're totally prepared. And then the other thing I would describe is I think from the standpoint of being somebody that focuses on the other person, it's easy as a kid who grows up to be a pretty great athlete and you get a lot of renown for that. It's easy to be self-focused all the time. And I'm very proud of the fact that you have turned into an outer focus with a really strong intensity around growth. You have really adopted the idea of this growth mindset that says, what am I doing every single day to grow and get better and stretch?

And our old colleague from Lexis Nexus, former CEO for many years ago, Jack Simpson had a term. He said, you've got to change, got to grow. And he meant it every single day. Got a change, got to grow. So AJ, a couple things. One, an unbelievable teammate. Everybody I ever met in all of your years at Ohio State and in the NFL, mainly the Packers and then a bit with the Bengals, always had the same thing to say.

What a teammate. What respect they had. And I think it just continues on to this day, even though AJ's done playing and a lot of those other guys are done playing too. They still have this respect for each other. And I have a belief that one of the reasons that you are so much fun on the Pat McAvey show is I have a feeling based on a lot of the guests that you get a lot of those guests to come on the show because you're a great teammate. So that's really a big part of it.

And the other part is the intensity of your preparation is beyond a scope anybody could ever, I think, have, especially if there's competition involved. We have had many a Christmas push-up contest in the family that he won't quit, even when he's injured. And I even remember at, I think Centerville High School has an award for, I forget what you guys would know the term that it's called, but when you achieve all these points for all these fitness things, preparation things you do, AJ is like up on the wall with that.

And I even remember when you're a freshman in Ohio State, you contributed big early on. something to do with dips. So sorry, I don't want to take any time to explain dips to the listener, but it's a strength move. So a great teammate and an unbelievable preparer, especially as a competitor. Age, you want to go? You want me to go?

Yeah. So I'll start with Pistol, I guess. I mean, there's a million things you could say Pistol for sure. Consistency is crazy with everything you've done. I don't think I ever, I think about it now because I get up in the morning and work out before my kids get up always and whatever. And people say, oh, you do every day? Yeah, every day. I enjoy it. That's what I do. It's my time down there. And I don't know if there's ever I don't know if there's ever a time I woke up as a kid and Pistol wasn't up. Like,

do you ever remember seeing Pistol in bed, Ryan? No. I don't know if that was a conscious effort or you're just, you have a mental illness and you only sleep two and a half hours a night. That's part of it, maybe. I don't sleep. I wait. Yes, exactly. So I mean, I would say I think that almost sub-consum Consciously, I feel like, well, yeah, like, my kids can't come wake me up out of bed. Like, what are you talking about? That's not happening. Like, my kids would freak out. They probably would think I'm dead if they saw me.

So I don't know if that's good or bad, but that's something I guess from watching Pistol forever. And I said it on here last time as well. Like, you never once would make us do anything like physical or for sports. Oh, this, you got to go get your mind right for if you want to win the game today. No, but I could bump you at three in the morning and wake you up and you'll pop right up and you'll rebound for me if I wanted to shoot free throws. So sometimes I almost feel guilty if I'm not living up to that with my kids.

Because I have four kids and they'll want to ask, like, all of them are asking to do something at the same time. Like, oh, gosh, all right, hold on, guys. Like, yeah, I'm not saying no, I'm going to do it. But I just got to the two older ones, I got to do this quick. Like sometimes I'm like, man, how did Pistol work this out with three boys? How do you ever figure this out? I don't know.

But I'd say that. And another thing for Pistol, though, and Ryan knows way more than I do, anybody that's ever crossed paths with pistol has only has like I don't have to get it out of them the first thing they say is like oh my god your dad's the best pistol's the best like he is not only the best like leader boss salesman everything at work but like person like so I think I noticed as I growing up I realized like man all these people that pistol cross paths cross paths with whether he worked with them or their friends or they're on the old softball team when he was trying to bunt the ball playing underhand softball, like I feel like they all have great things to say. And I never had to get it out of

them. I never was like, oh, what'd you like about my dad? Like, no. No one wants someone to ask him that. They always just voluntarily told me how awesome Pistol was, how good he was for them, how he may have changed their life. And I feel like there's thousands and thousands of people like that out there. Thanks, man. And then Ryan, obviously, so Ryan, you're like a mini, a miniature clone of Pistol almost in certain aspects. So better body. I don't know. That's debatable, isn't it?

I don't know. Look at Pistols flexing right now for the audio listeners. I think another, I mean, the consistency, which it's like cliche to say, but your consistency that you have the prep, like Pistol said for a speech, for anything, you know, like Ryan knows Pistol, you know, too. Like if I have a, if I have to give a talk, I have like a paper to write back in the day for school, whatever. I'm talking to Ryan and Pistol.

I'm talking to both of you guys trying to get help with it because you guys would always be so, I don't know, detail-oriented. I guess I always respect that and love how you can do it. But also the same thing. Like I'm two years younger than Ryan. I played, I was lucky enough to play two years with you in high school. And anybody that Ryan's ever played with,

like Ryan was the ultimate leader. Definitely, it reminds me of like Kobe Bryant talking about being a leader. How it hates, it's tough. You're not always going to be liked. Like people are going to, some people may dislike you. and I saw that first, like not in a good way to where you'd hold people accountable and everyone knew like, hey, you're running the show and we're all looking to Ryan to, he's going to take us where we want to go.

And I think that's exactly how he is in business and life and your family and raising your kids and all of that. So that's huge. There's not many, I don't think there's many natural leaders out there. I think you're one of them. Wow. That's awesome. Thank you. I'm going to all go to answer the question.

And I'll start with you, H. So I would say some of it is similar epistle, but, but, But, you know, I have, I've had the good fortune to become really good friends with a lot of your friends and a lot of your teammates. And it's universal across the board. Like, they hold you in higher regard than just about any other teammate they've ever played with. Whether it's Bobby and Schlegs at Ohio State, you know, and Bobby and Slags are two of my good friends now that I text with regularly. Schleg spoke at my last workshop and just tore the house down how good he was, you know? And he drove here from Columbus, put this, mapped his whole thing.

out and I was like, do you regularly give this speech? He's like, no, this is the first time I've ever done it. And I was like, are you serious? You did that for, I didn't pay him or anything. Like, you did that for me. And he's like, and your brother, yeah, I'll do anything for you guys. You know, and, and you don't have friends and teammates like that. You have to, you have to earn those types of the friendships and that type of loyalty and continue earning it day after day. So what I would say that I think is just incredible. There's a lot of things I could say. It's just this relentless, work ethic that's beyond anyone I've ever seen like anywhere any team any place I've ever seen so if there's ever a person who says whether you got lucky like we obviously we're lucky we're we're

born into like incredible parents in a gray house and all that well yes we got lucky but I don't think I've ever seen anybody ever make the most out of the situation that they've been given through their work ethic through through through their willingness to do more than pretty much anybody I've ever seen. And I, I, I, I just think that's, that's why all of the teammates, that's why they're all like, I know he's going to be here. I'm voting him captain. I want him on the field. I want him next to me. He's dependable and reliable and works harder than anybody I've ever seen. So when all the good things happen, like, because some of these questions I got like, they're about jealousy and we've talked about this before. And I'm like, how could you be jealous of a person who

works harder than anyone you've ever seen how like it's it's it to me it's impossible if you didn't work or whatever like maybe i'm like oh you know that's kind of garbage but it's impossible to have to have that feeling when you see the level of commitment that a person has to excellence in everything that they do certainly on the field which is what most people see but also like you know i got to go to your house and sit there for a few days when you're out of town and i'm hanging out with hendricks and veteran and and And just the way they talk about you, like that stuff, like it's excellence as a dad as well. So I think that relentless work ethic and drive, it's cool that it's not just about the football field and your teammates.

It's actually with the things that are even more important than that, which is at home. So I'd say that that's there. And it's cool when I get to have conversations with guys like Aaron or Jordy and hear what they say about you when you're not around, you know, like without me asking, you know, like the unprompted stuff. They'll be like, was he always like this? Was he always just crazy of a worker? Was he always going to the wait room so early?

Always doing this stuff. And I'm just like, yeah, pretty much. And he still is that way. And they're like, man, that's crazy. But I'm glad he's on my team. You know, that's the coolest thing to hear from your guys. Because, you know, we did that stuff separately. We got to play together for two years.

But from that point on, you know, we're separated. We're both playing and doing our own thing. Pistol, I would say just just the, just the. selflessness is is probably one of it as age said is is the the quality that we try and mostly fail to live up to of just being the the most selfless person in the world like i happen to actually i think part of my attraction to my wife miranda is she reminds me of you uh when it comes to being selfless and that's a really weird thing to say but but there are a lot of similar i think you guys even see that because you have a pretty good bond

over a lot of a lot of your similarities and I think that's the thing like and grandpa hawk you know your dad obviously our grandpa is the exact same way and so in a way you see like this lineage of this is how the leader of the hawk family needs to be and it's like wow I'm not i'm not even close I'm more selfish than they are but I'm trying like I'm trying to get to a place to where random people are calling me and I'll talk for an hour and a half and and you get off the phone you're like, what was that all about? I'm just, you know, you're just trying to help the guy out. Just trying to help him out.

You know, they're going through some stuff. You know, I'm just trying to help him get a job. You know, like the amount of people that you've helped get jobs, I can't even, I mean, I know you don't keep track of that stuff. You just do it. I don't even know what the number is. It's probably in the thousands of people. You literally help them get a job, especially when they really needed it.

So I think that's the thing that age and I have to look to to say, wow, we, we need to get better at that. I speak for myself. I need to get better at that. And maybe it comes with age or I don't know what it is, but I did want to ask you about that because do you feel like that's innate? Did you see it from your dad or from other people or where does it come from to just have this overwhelming others focus? Well, thanks. I appreciate that observation.

I hope it's pretty true. I did not consciously operate on those lines. I did observe my own. own dad and how he treats people for sure. But I mean, I've had this philosophy of, and it's only grown as in retirement, at least from my main job, that my happiness, my success is better and richer if it follows other people's success. And I really mean that. So it's more satisfying. It's much more enjoyable to participate in someone else coming up, being successful, having something good happen than if it's just you on your own. And so I do think in a in a leadership role,

you better have that outward focus on other people because otherwise you're I think potentially a very bad leader if it's all about you. You've got to be all about the population around you. So to me it's fun and it's a big part of my mission these days is, is there are people out there that that aren't as fortunate or they're just in a tough situation or tough spot and when they raise their hand or have an interest in collaborating on something, man, I'm excited to dive in. I feel like, man, I've been productive and helped something good happened today. I didn't just go out and hit golf balls badly. Well, part of it too, I think I said you a text, was it this week? I sent you a text. I said, how much of this next book do you want to edit?

And you're like, as much as you need, be careful. Be careful. Be careful what you're asking for. You're about to get an email a day with 750 words. But I think that that, that point, part of is like it just I kind of knew that that would be the answer but I also don't want to abuse it too I would which I'm I'm really grateful for because I know I send it to you and when it comes back it's like oh my writing is not that bad it's not that bad it's actually like decent now after it's been been put together in a lot better way okay age I got a question from my friend Jeff Loying he is a senior engineer at Facebook and Jeff and I have like monthly calls because his brain is seven times the size of mine and I learn a lot from him.

But he said he's a father of two young boys. And he said, I love to hear how you and your brother, AJ, grew up in a way that you cheer for each other more than compete because he has two sons. And he says they fight and I, you know, part of that is obviously they're young. But I'd be curious to hear what you think about the fact that I think from as long as I can remember we've been each other's kind of biggest fans when, when, when we're, whether we're playing together or not, most of the years we haven't played together. We only got to play together for two years.

What do you think for, for people who are dads of two boys who are close in age, advice or things you could share with them, drawing from the experience that you and I have had and continue to have? Yeah, I don't know if there's something that pistol did back in the day that helped that out or not. I, I assume you didn't. But yeah, we're only two years apart. I mean, I think it's just watching Pistol and watching how everyone else

interacts in the family because it never crossed my mind to ever be jealous. And like, Pistol, you remember Ryan, the Golden Boy, the Golden, like, that was Ryan. Wouldn't that your screen name for a while? QB1. No, what are you talking about? Your AOL user screen name was like Golden Boy 1 or something. No, they said that to me when I was eighth grader going to my freshman year after like, you know, it started going well early in my freshman season in high school.

Yeah. Yeah. And I remember, like, I was your biggest fan. And I remember back in the day I was in maybe not even middle school yet. I remember Burke, our oldest brother had a big game against Wayne, I think. And I remember Pistol explaining everything to me and tell me like, David George, I think it was David George running back, like basically like rode Burke into the end zone on the play,

like how good of a game Burke had. And so in the moment, I was like, yes, I was so juiced for Burke. But I think I saw how pumped Pistol was and how pumped you were. And I'm like, yeah, well, of course. Why would, how could you not be super excited for your brother, doing that. And so I think that's, that's just how it's always been. And it's not like that everywhere else because I talk about that with my wife and Laura all the time. Like, man, like, what is when we see other, like we have friends or people where they're just really weird and

jealous over things that their siblings do. And I'm like, man, that would just not be a fun situation. If you were like rooting against a sibling, I don't know. I'm very glad we don't have that. I've never thought that's never crossed my mind. Um, I think like the, The number one thing I've always been is the most nervous spectator ever for anything you or Burke ever do. I'd mentioned that I believe on last time. Watching Burke wrestle when he was in high school is the most nervous ever been in my life. Like I've never not, I've never been that nervous. Like just sitting there, I remember at Centerville High School, Burke went out there.

I don't know if he won or lost the match, but I was so nervous for him. And I think that happens too where it happens sometimes. Just because you don't have any control over the outcome and you're worried about how is he going to feel if he loses. have the same thing with my kids now. Like you don't want them to lose. I know it's a part of it. They have to. But I don't just, I want to protect their feelings, protect them. So I want them to make sure that things go well. But obviously, that's not how it always works. So I, I mean, Pistol, did you make any kind of effort? Yeah, what do you think, Pistol? Well, I don't know if I made efforts. I mean, you were together so much. I mean, I remember we would have those little office talks

where I'd sit at my desk and you guys would sit in a couple of chairs. And we'd have, we'd have discussions about what do we want to do, what do we want to be, and I still have some of those notes, to be honest with you, that you want to look at sometime. But I think it's just the fact that you were both very, I think had largely equivalent skill sets. There wasn't one of you that was so much more dominant over the other that you guys could compete with each other. And AJ always played up and Ryan drug him along everywhere, that you were together. I mean, you're almost like twins and I think you have a little bit of the twin kind of mentality even though you're a couple years apart in age but I you know as evidence of what you're both saying and you guys have heard me

say this publicly before I discovered text messaging when you guys started texting me from locker rooms and remember when you were in college you had an overlap and I would always go to whoever was the farthest away from home so the mom could go to a lot of home games basically and and invariably after one of you was done, if the other one was still playing, the one that had just finished his game would text or call me and say, how's AJ doing in his game? How's Ryan doing in his game? And, you know, I still vividly remember sitting in this driving snowstorm in Buffalo at the University of Buffalo when Ryan was playing up there.

You might remember that six or eight inches of snow during the game game. And AJ's on the phone with me after he had just finished a game at Ohio State, and I'm literally giving him a play-by-play as he's still. standing there sweating in the locker room at Ohio State of what's happening on your last drive in that game at Buffalo. And so you guys have always been intensely interested in the other. So it's the opposite of jealousy. It's joyous. Honestly, it really is. I think it stems from an admiration. I just have an admiration for the work and for the production and for the behavior and for seeing what goes into it. So for me, that's why it's always been

such a joy. Like I remember and pistol. I think you could say like age, his work has created some of the greatest family memories of our life. How many times did we get to walk into Lambo Field? We see grown men cry like every time. And we're walking there. That was just a normal Sunday for us in the fall for nine years. Nine years up there. You play against the University of Texas and Vince Young.

It's under the lights, the most electric environment I've ever been in in my life. You get an interception of fumble recovery. Remember the ball went straight from the ball carrier into your hands, running it back. I remember like, Pistol, H, has it. I remember that so vividly. And he was like, what? I'm like, because obviously I'm watching you. I'm not watching anything else.

And I just think like the creation of memories. You said this at your Hall of Fame speech, age, remember? You're like, oh, like, I'm kind of cool because this brings our family together. Like we all went, you got inducted in the Ohio State Hall of Fame this year or last year. And you said, I'm, I'm just, it's just cool that, you know, this helps bring the family together. I'm like, yeah, that's true. Like, it made me think of all of the years playing of like, we wouldn't have like Pistol bought that house when you.

you got drafted all of the years that you played and how we had so many awesome memories because of your work. And I'm like, that's pretty cool. Like, how could you not be grateful for a person who, you know, there would be Sundays where I'm like, I'm kind of glad. Like, we're at our house. We have like Brian Bob Gardner from the office. He's hanging out. We're doing victory shots. And you're sitting there having to prepare to play. I'm like, I'm actually, this is kind of fun. Like there was a time where I'm like, this is great. I am happy that our family is here having such a good time. The only bad, part was like you weren't there to enjoy those parts, but you then created the memories when you,

when you got on the field and we got to watch you. I think it makes sense. I mean, you brought up that, what I said in that speech. Yeah, I think that's 100% right when you look at it. Like, anything you get to do that's cool, usually it's not like by yourself. There's usually a lot of people around you and you get to bring your family and friends and get to create, great moments, create memories. I mean, that's the thing. I was actually on, um, I call in to show, to show, Lego and Bobby's radio show every Friday. I have an 830 thing they do. Every Friday, I'm always on there, and it's really fun. And they're crazy. And they ask me, what's one of my favorite Christmas gifts? I actually mentioned when my wife, I was like, she puts together experiences. She likes to remember,

like she doesn't like this stuff. And I agree with her. It's awesome. And she got us tickets to go see Kobe down in Miami, play against the heat. And we went and went to dinner before all this. Ryan got food poisoning, was running up the stairs, puking, almost got kicked out because they thought he was hammered and he's puking in the steps inside the heat arena.

And I actually got to try to tell him that he's okay, don't worry, he's already just really sick and food. He got food sushi. That's true story. Yeah. Didn't have a single drink.

Yeah. Bad sushi. And I was like, that's one of the best, one of the best memories I can remember from Christmas. I think it was a Christmas gift. That was an amazing gift from Laura.

Amazing. It was awesome because you got to be a part of it. We got to go down there. We watched Kobe. I think it went to triple over time. It was unbelievable. So yeah, those things are, things that are awesome are usually shared. It's usually not just so great point.

I have friends I have met since you retired age. And I say to some of them sometimes, boy, I wish we'd known you when AJ was in Green Bay. Because you have no idea how much fun we had back in those days. And we bought that house in Green Bay. Your mom and I bought that house in Green Bay and people would come over to the place. And it was phenomenal. So, yeah, Ryan's point is, yeah, shared experiences. There's no jealousy in that, man.

It is all joy. It is. Okay, let me look at somebody's gosh. So Doug Meyer, a business partner here at Bricksey and Meyer, co-founder and CEO of the firm, he sent a list of really good questions. So let me get to one or two of them. The first one, pistols for you. And maybe age, it would be interesting to hear what you think.

What was your reaction when you heard Ryan was leaving a high-paying job at a large company to take a substantial pay cut to start the leadership advisory practice at Bricksey and Meyer? My response to that will not be the expected. I was euphoric. I thought it was amazing, fantastic. So many of us settle for something because it's secure or it's safe or it's a good income. And for a while in my career, I thought that about myself. I thought, well, I really wanted to be a broadcaster.

I really wanted to do something along those lines. but I got this job and I was making good money as a salesman. And then I kind of builds on itself. And for a number of years, I thought, man, oh man, I just gave up one thing that would have been really exciting for something else that was solid. Little did I know it was going to become something wonderful and it was the right thing to do. But the fact that you at a relatively young age said, I'm going to step out and do exactly what I want to do, precisely what I want to do.

And there's certainly a lot of downside. but the upside's unlimited, both in terms of fun, of fulfillment, maybe even money. And so I couldn't have been happier. I couldn't have been happier. Is there some concern? Yeah, you had a family and with a bunch of girls and your kids and all of that to take care of. But I had a feeling that you would figure that out, and you had a great wife and Miranda who would help you figure that out as well.

But I couldn't have been happier. I was delighted. To me, it was comparable to age going to the NFL to say, they're doing exactly what they would most want to do. Slightly less money than age got when he signed. But I don't remember, like we haven't really talked about that much. But I remember I did, you know,

there were tougher moments at points of my last job. And I would text and talk with age like, oh, man, you know, I won't mention all the bad stuff. But there are some things. And so when this happened to, I'm curious what you were thinking. I thought good. I heard.

different things that have been going on and it's nothing like crazy awful or anything like that and you weren't like come you never complained to me about it you i would ask you questions i every once in a while i get very curious in your business life because it's so foreign to me i guess i just know i try to put myself in your shoes and try to see if i could succeed but i that's like good and then i in my mind i was like yeah he's gonna kill it yeah i i think of um you know we talk about proving proving people wrong who doubt you and and you know you know i subscribe to kind of the opposite method when it comes to what drives me and what motivates me and and i think there can be you know it can be like a really driving force for some to put that chip on the shoulder and kind of leave

it there and if it gets taken off then they find another one to put it on there and for me i feel like right is like one of the most powerful motivations in the world for me like i am super inspired by the support and love of people that love me that that that combination with like seeing some of the impact you make by hearing from people who listen to this and and other things that i've done that that is that is as driving of a force as there's a reason i hang these up back here behind my shoulder for the video listeners you know these are these are these are notes that have been written to me. And it's because it's a reminder. I get asked a lot about it when I do these Zoom calls with people. Like, what are what is that? I said, well, what I do is hard, you know,

it gets hard because I have to, I have to create a business from nothing, create revenue from nothing. My podcast is free and then create sources of revenue to, to build a profitable business for my supporters, Doug and Dave, Doug Meyer, Dave Bricksey, so that it makes sense for them to continue to stay in business with me. And so it's a good. reminder when it's really tough and you got to scratch out another hundred words, you got to prep for something or you got to give a talk or whatever to be reminded by the people that you that that you've inspired, the people that you've impacted. So you look at them. You actually look at them and you actually read them. These are in some cases strangers and people I'll never meet that you do your best to to be

inspired and motivated by them as well as the people who support and love you. And I think that's been like for me a big learning over the past few years as a driving force to to do what I do and to keep trying to get better and better at it so I can do more of it. I mean, the reward for great work is the opportunity to do more of it. And that's like how I view this. Like I just want to be able to keep doing it. All right. Let's go pistol. This is a tougher one. Also from Doug, give an example how you handle. I'm guessing this is because he's a dad of kids and he cares deeply about being a great dad to Jocelyn and Jacob his kids. Give an example how you handled when one of your kids wanted to do something, but you thought it was a mistake. Well, first of all, you guys are dead. So you've already

faced, I'm sure, in your lives, your children doing something or wanting to do something that you don't feel so good about. My philosophy that I think I did learn from my dad is sit back. I don't, unless I believe you're going to harm yourself physically or emotionally or do something that breaks the law, I'm not going to get in a way. I'm really not. I have learned in my life so much more from things that perhaps were mistakes than from things that I've done right that I think as long as you're not hurting yourself or your family, I'm not going to step in and say anything about it. I'll let you go. If you come to me and you ask for the pros and cons, I'll absolutely give them.

But when you're in your 30s, it's not my job anymore to say, I think that's wrong. It's really not. As long as it's safe, right? As long as it's safe. It passes that parameter, that barrier,

then I'm not going to say a word. Really not. Is there an example you can think of to answer? Well, there's one time that has actually cemented, and I've never, I don't think, told you this, there's one time that kind of cemented that I'm not going to get involved. When you were pondering, leaving Miami University,

AJ and I were both, I think, teamed up, perhaps separately, but teamed up on the concept, digona, you're a quarterback, get out of there, Ben Rathosberger's in your way of achieving your dreams, get someplace where you can achieve your dreams as a quarterback, get out of Miami. And I knew you had kind of, mixed feelings about that. You loved Miami University. You loved your teammates. You loved your

coaching staff. And you hear you had your brother and your dad, you know, leaning hard. Come on, you're great. Get out of there. Go play at another school. And you did. And it worked out well. You went out and you played and you got to be a quarterback in college or a captain. No one could say that didn't go well. But there have been times when I look back and I go, he could have been Julian Edelman if he'd stayed at Miami and been a receiver. And you were kind of on that path. That's kind of what probably wanted to do with you and you had a little taste of it and from time to time i'm like he has all the ability in the world and perhaps if we hadn't gotten in his way he might have been he might have been julian edelman and shared NFL careers with his brother so that that's that taught me

no no they got to make their own decisions as long as they're not harming themselves uh it's interesting i i i have those thoughts too every once in a while um but i also think i probably wasn't good enough to be Julian Edelman. So then I'm like, all right, you know, it's good the way it worked out. But every once in a while, could you have, could you have maybe redshirted a year, worked at the craft, learned everything about it, played in the slot with, with the greatest quarterback in the history of that school, the greatest athlete in history of that school. Who knows?

But I mean, in a way, like I draw so much from that story and so much from that time, my life. I truly think it was a transformative time that I'm really grateful for because I still have friends who say, like, man, that was. so unlucky man i'm like no you know like how many people get to get to go go head to head two years with a hall of famer you know with the best athlete in the history of the school literally like that's a fact not like nobody gets to do that and so like i really am able to look back the one thing i would love to have happen and i i hope it gets to him somehow is i love to have a one-on-one conversation with ben i love to have him on this show and record it and talk you know i've tried uh you

know we hung out a few times in Tahoe and other places. I know age he talked to you after you guys played against him when he, when you picked him off with one hand, sweet play, um, and, and had good conversations. But that's one thing like I would like to just to talk about that time.

Because the difference for him and me, though, is this. I was just another guy he beat out. Just another guy. He beat out a lot of quarterbacks in his career. But to him, he beat me out.

And that's the only guy that's ever beat me out. So it's so different the way we probably view each other. Um, and so it would be fun. And I hope at some point we're able to have that conversation. But age like, given that this is football related, I'd be just curious to hear what you think. I get, yeah, I mean, I remember that time.

I remember 100% saying like wanting you to get out of this. Like go play at OU. Like I think I was very opinionated in that. I haven't given a ton of thought like, oh, the whole Edelman situation. But then instantly I start thinking like, man, if you had played slot receiver, you'd taken so much damage, your brain wouldn't work nearly well, you wouldn't be able to write two books.

You wouldn't be able to work on your second book right now. You know, like, that's a really good point. Interesting. Do you say that? Are you projecting a bit? Where does that come from? I'm not saying, like, because of myself, like, I'm very lucky. I've born, somehow Pistols jeans gave me a hard head and hard jaw.

Correct. I'm okay. But I know how much damage those guys have taken. I don't know why. Okay, I think it's because, like, I watched Joe, I watched Edelman in whatever Super Bowl it was. But he caught a ball got dinged super hard. Amendoa comes over, basically picks him up,

and then Edelman stays in the game, and then catches the game when he touchdown pass. And I don't know how he felt afterwards. I've heard he did not feel great. I've talked to those guys at the Derby, and I see them all, like, I see like the trio. Wes Walker, Edelman, and Amindola, all three, like, very similar little guys.

And those guys are as tough as it comes. And they take, they have taken a lot of damage over their careers. saying it's going to mess them up or their heads messed up, anything like that. But I'm saying, I guess you as my brother, I'm like, man, I didn't want them to do. I don't want them to do that. Like, that was back when you could hit guys in the NFL, when the defense could hit you when he came across the middle too. So like, it would have been, you would have been really good at it.

Unfortunately, I don't think that slot role was as defined as it is now. Like back when you would have made that transition, you would have been awesome. But for as your brother, I'm glad you didn't because I think you would have gotten knocked out eight or ten times just in your college career doing that. That's a good point. every once in a while I speak with a real old dude on my show and he's just like in a way it's good you know like are you glad like you're healthy and that's that's better and now you have like all the all this time to go and do do do some great things and you're perfectly healthy I'm like yes

I feel very grateful for being completely healthy never had a surgery never had a knee never had anything wrong that's a really good perspective okay let me get to more questions so pistol it's I've spoken about this before and so chase abbott on Instagram wrote to me it's been said that there's nothing like a Keith Hawk email and I've I've probably because I've talked about this when I've talked to people who you work with and I've seen him myself the the kind of the care and the quality of the it sounds funny of the emails you've you've written to your teams and just people in general and and so I love for you to talk to answer Chase's question about one your your your ability to hone your your writing skill

as well as the way you thought about sending email to people that worked for you. Well, it was important to me how I communicated, both in writing and vocally or live. And I took it, especially when I became and got into leadership roles, I took it very seriously when I was communicating something in writing. I didn't write a bunch of dumb notes to people, you know, like pump them up notes. I didn't do a lot of that. But when I wrote something, I wanted to read it. I wanted to write it with the emphasis on respect for the who's the reader.

And so I've tried to be concise and right to the point and maybe use a little bit of my training in English and composition because I did study that in college to say, don't ever bury the headline. When you're going to give somebody news, especially if it's sometimes challenging news, put it right up front. Here we go. We're not going to have a sandwich of a bunch of happy talk. And then here comes the tough thing.

And then happy talk at the end. we're going to say the purpose of this of this communication today is to tell you blank whatever it might be and I've always made it a point to say don't hide what it is you're trying to say and so I would just I just had a focus on clarity I had an emphasis on write it then read it and then write it again or edit it I wasn't real big on letting other people see my stuff I did a lot of self self editing and I think part of it is sometimes they leadership role is a lonely role. Leaders don't always have people around them that they feel comfortable sharing the toughest challenges they have. Some people might be better at it than I am. And so I just paid strict attention to I'm going to be clear, concise, respect the person that's receiving this communication and really do my absolute level best to do it well.

And then through time, I think I got better at it. And I became proud of the fact that people knew if I wrote them something, they're getting the straight, the straight story. And I think the vivid clarity on the mission, on your role in the mission, on making sure people, there wasn't really much gray area from, from everything I've read about like, I remember you sent us a note at one point really early in my career about hiring, right? And it was, it was just bold a point perfect. This is how we do it. And then ended with one of your quotes that I've actually put in some of my keynotes, which is like, this is the most important thing you'll ever do. If you do it well, you'll become rich and famous within this industry. And if you do it poorly,

you'll become unemployed and poor. Hold your, and sad. Hold your standards. Yeah, I still remember this. I'm not looking at this. Hold your standards high. Do it right. And I thought about that through my time as I was like, okay, my role now as a manager is I get to select the players on my team. don't mess this up. And if you get it right, which I got lucky probably more than I was good at it, if you get it right, it is the coolest thing in the world to build your own team and to hire and then to see the team become a recruiting machine because there's a bunch of high performers that want to be surrounded by other high performers. And as the manager, you're thinking, wow, like this is awesome. And that started with like emails like that. That's

So like I don't want to underestimate the importance of leaders of their communication, of what they say, what they write. Like don't, like you said, don't just send stupid emails. Like everything has to have intention and purpose. Don't just forward garbage. You know, oh, click, hey, guys, check this out. No, don't do that. Tell me what you think and be very clear with the mission and what my role is in it.

And then I'll go do it. And I think that's one of the critical. parts of it. Okay. Nate DeMars, our friend who owns pursuit in Columbus, Ohio. He wrote me a note and he said, you've all moved on, all three of you moved on to what I'd consider second careers. How do you approach starting over as a novice in a new field? I can go if you want me to go. I have some thoughts or do you guys want to go first? Go ahead. Go ahead. So there is a video, I believe, of Kobe Bryant out there. that it may be an interview regardless.

I read it or watched it where he said, there is absolutely no excuse to not know everything about what you want to do. So if you want to be a broadcaster, if you want to be a podcaster, if you want to write a book, it is all out there. The internet is beautiful. There are people. There are things you can watch on YouTube. There are things you can read.

So it is your fault, yours and yours is a lot. alone if you don't aggressively pursue all that's out there in order to learn and you can become great at something completely different as he did. He won an Oscar. Kobe did after he was done playing his career. That's why it's so sad. It was such a sad day because he was like just beginning what could have been an incredible career. And he was, he's one of the greatest players of all time. And I think that really spoke to me, which is there is no excuse. When I started this show, you know, I read and looked at everything possible to get my podcast to rank high and new and noteworthy. You know, all the algorithms, everything possible. And then I watched and read everything

possible about who are excellent interviewers and how I could mash my personality together with those people and to be good at this. If I, if I'm not good at it, and if I don't understand the industry, it is 100% my fault. So whatever it is that you want to do or you want to try to get good at. If you are not good at it, it's your fault. It's all out there. Now, it wasn't always like this. Like Pistol probably in some of your things earlier on, there wasn't the internet. There wasn't ubiquitous information all over the place. It was harder. Now, though, there is no excuse. And so, Nate, the answer that I would say is, regardless of whatever you want to do and what anybody wants to do, there is no excuse not to do your homework, do your work

preparing to do the thing well and then continue to iterate and to read and to learn and to talk to people so that you can continue to get better and better at whatever it is that you're trying to do. And I'd say that's how I view that. That's how I viewed. That's how I continually try to get better at whether it's writing a book or giving a speech or doing a podcast or running a leadership circle. I study all that stuff because there is no excuse for me not to get, not to get excellent at it because it's all there for me to get. Yeah, I mean, I agree with obviously what you said. It's awesome.

What Kobe said, it makes so much sense. But I think you have to find something that you actually are passionate about, though. Yep. I mean, you left a job that, yeah, you loved it for to almost create a job that and create this whole world that you love and you're passionate about. That's just what you do. It's not a, even though you're working all the time, you work hard, I'm sure in your mind, it's not a job.

It's definitely not a job. It's a lot of work, but it's not a job. Exactly. I think that's everybody's goal. Like I never said, oh, I'm going to work when I was playing football. Like, nope, give the wife a kiss on the way out, going to work, be back at six. Like, I never felt that way. It was never, like, I'm going to football, that's what I'd say.

Like, I got to go to football. But I think now, if you find, you got to, first off, you got to figure out what you want to do. Like if you're, if it's almost like a forced retirement, like professional sports are, where you know there's, you have a finite amount of time in the league, the day you step in. like, you know, like I'll be done and I'm most likely going to be very young. Hopefully, compared to what my, my lifespan is, you've got to figure out what you're passionate about, what you care about. And I know my first four or five years in the league, I never thought ever.

I was like, I would never go into like the media broadcasting world. I don't want to do any of that. I respect them, but I could never do that. I don't want to speak. I never, I don't know. I just didn't, I was probably given terrible interviews, like just giving cliche answers because I, I don't know. I looked at it differently, and then I went to this broadcast boot camp.

The NFL puts on, and I did like three days of like 15 hours of work, like doing every possible thing you would do. And I was like, man, this is great. I loved it. I like that like made me understand this is what I want to do. And so that's what I want to do. And now it's so the hard thing I think for some people is having like self-discipline being intrinsically motivated. They need somebody to tell them. Like a lot of people when they get out of the league, they're so used to their whole life being scheduled for them.

why they struggle because nobody's there telling them, hey, special teams meeting at 7 o'clock, 730s, next meeting, boom, boom, boom, your whole day is scheduled for you. They need that. That's the best thing about being out of the league. I make my schedule. I mean, well, I should say my kids make my schedule. I'm kind of around them, but I get to pick, I'm very, I understand how lucky I am. I get to choose and do the things that I love to do that I want to do. And with, like, the broadcasting world, there's seven million platforms you can do that on. There's you can do your own stuff. You can try to get with networks.

You can just do so many different things. So there's no, I think there is no excuse if that's what you truly love to like find your lane and figure it out. And that's what I've been doing. And luckily this show with Pat McAfee and what I enjoy that a lot, once COVID is up where we're supposed to go do live shows and do things on site at games and go down for the Super Bowl week and do all these things. Eventually it's going to get to that, which will be make it even better. but yeah I think once you figure out what you're actually passionate about yeah there's absolutely no excuse because it shouldn't be a job it's a ton of work but it shouldn't be a job and it's funny for me

like what I do with pat yeah so I'm away on the air like an hour or so a day with him smoking cigars the whole time it looks like oh and it is a fun it's great that's all I enjoy I enjoy it very very much but I do like you know Sundays like I got to watch games I got to I got to study like Monday mornings if I can't watch every single game like I know I have to talk about I need I want to be like up I want to know what happened I don't want to sound like an idiot so I'll watch all recaps of a ton of games I'm studying games writing notes for for different things like last night there's a Thursday night game on I was taking notes throughout the game of what was happening just so I know I don't have to like go back and look at them and reference them usually if I'm doing a show but just right for me I've know I've said it writing stuff down is how I learn so I like to old school write things down and that's what I do so I do so So it's funny because it looks like, oh, that's what you do. You're just an idiot over there smoking cigars and sitting up in an attic in your house. Yep, absolutely. I'm the luckiest guy in the world because I love it and I actually get paid to do it.

So yeah, once you find your lane, you're right, though. There's no excuse. Just figure it out. Yeah, I love it. I love it. Pistol, what about you? Well, I think mine's a little bit different. I made my move a legitimate retirement, right?

I spent 40 years in the corporate world. And so I was looking for a different lifestyle. And some of it's related to what age described of your schedule. I, over time, as I got closer to actual retirement from corporate life, I found myself resenting the time I spent completely immersed in the work. And I looked forward to not being that immersed. And I wanted to spread my time out into different things. And so I chose things like I want to participate a little bit in other companies, so board memberships. I want to participate a little bit in the broadcasting world.

So I get to do voiceovers. And maybe I'll do a little bit more of that in the future. And then a lot of personal kind of counseling kind of things. And a lot of fun, a lot of fun things. I have an interest in spending time in warm weather climates when it's cold in Ohio. And I can do stuff like that now. But the one point I wanted to make is that when you go into something new that you haven't necessarily done before or done full time, there's the danger of something that I think has been called the imposter syndrome, right? Whenever I go into a new situation where my experiences and maybe even my skill set are not yet perfectly matched, I feel like an imposter perhaps if I don't have the right attitude.

The other thing you said, though, that you guys both reiterated is there's never been a better time to learn something new. than right now. The information, virtually all the information that's ever been created in the history of the world is available at the touch of a fingertip. I mean, I sat at my breakfast table this morning and yelled at my Google speaker, how old is Dr. Fauci? And it told me, like three seconds later, you know, he's 80 or he's going to be 80 this week. And just you can get anything you need to go out there. So to me, it's more about focusing on to the ages point, find something you're passionate about, dive in deep, and enjoy the heck out of it. And you really will never work a job.

You'll work, but you won't work a job. So it's been a nice, smooth, easy transition for me. I love a little bit of work and a lot of play. So Pistel, this one's kind of interesting for, it's you to talk about both of us. So there's a now friend of mine, Keegan Linza, who he played pro baseball. He's been in my leadership circle now going on four years, which is awesome. and I love Keegan and he got promoted this year and now he's running a team and he's he's absolutely killing it and when he got promoted much similar to how when I got promoted there were

open positions that he had to fill and so I was like dude like we got it we got to get this ready to go you get this right and you'll be good and and so we talked about um this is what keegan said to me during the interview prep we talked about the DNA and life experiences that we desired in candidates because I helped them build this scorecard and this interview process, all this stuff. It was awesome. And he said, if I asked you in a job interview to share a life experience that has led to your success, how do you think Pistol, which is awesome because you Pistol, he's obviously

never met you. How do you think Pistol would answer on your and AJ's behalf? To me, it's the immediate answer is your experiences at Centerville High School. playing football for Bob Gregg, Ron Ulary, and all the other coaches around you, molded you in ways that extended well beyond what the family molded you. Being faced with the requirement to prepare mightily for something that's important, being faced with the absolute requirement to become a great teammate, to eventually become a leader, to compete hard,

to deal with adversity, to deal with tough criticism and coaching that comes in the form of coaching oftentimes, to deal with perhaps sometimes problem colleagues around you. So many things are taught in that little crucible that is a sports team, in your case, football. I can't fathom another place you could go to learn so much, so fast, so deeply with such intensity. as what you experienced when you guys spent those four years each at Centerville High School with that amazing, that amazing thing you were part of with football. To me, that, that, that, that's it. And if I had to tag on to it, you know, later on, I would say your, your, your, your post experiences, AJ going off to Ohio State, you're going up to Miami and Ohio,

you, and then you're both your later experiences and your, your, your, your, your, your, different experiences with pro sports, you know, it just added on. But I think this time at centerville probably was the solid deep foundation unquestionably to me the number one thing that that would I think shape you guys outside of the home um I would agree I would agree uh age I have a question from a this is a guy who uh he did not want me to use his name but he's a friend of mine and he's a high up guy but he's not the the top guy at his company and he said I'd love to hear what you guys think about um a place that's a great locker room with a bad coach or bad general manager or bad owner.

There are people in business that are working and they like their team, they like their people, but the people above them, they think are not very good. It's hard, I get, because you're not gonna throw any coach or anybody under the bus that you played for. And I know, they're all awesome. But obviously, you know, you have experiences and pistol you probably do too, and I do too,

of like how to manage a situation when you like your team a lot, but the people above you, you don't think they're that good or you don't respect them. And I think this is something that a lot of people can relate to. So what do you think from a sports perspective age? Maybe Pistol and I can talk about from a business perspective. I think that's pretty common. That happens with a lot of people, a lot of teams, a lot of businesses. There's certain people in positions where there's multiple people saying, how did they get that job?

How are they there? and it happens in every single profession. I feel like, I mean, I don't know how to like. I can't exactly like relate it to one specific group or team or anything I was on. Because I mean, it sounds like I'm lying, but I was so lucky. I played in high school, Bob, Greg, Ron Ulrey, Knopfinger, some of the greatest coaches alive. Then in college for Jim Tressel, one of the best humans ever to walk the earth.

And then the NFL with Mike McCarthy, who was the man. And his first year in Green Bay was my, my first year in Green Bay. We came in together his first time as a head coach, like awesome dude, awesome coach. But yeah, there's a lot of coaches around, though. There's a lot of people on staff. And I, yeah, when there's people above you that aren't, I guess, it's hard when you don't respect them. Like there's some people, okay, there's certain coaches where you respect them, but you hate them. Like, I respect that dude, but I just don't like them.

I don't have fun. It's not fun being around them. And nobody's having fun. Why is it always like doom and gloom? but I do respect how they carry themselves, like what their plan is, what they're doing. I think they're a good coach. There's coaches like that. That's fine.

You can handle that all. But not necessarily like the other parts about their personality. Exactly. It might not be the most fun working environment you're going to have, but you can live with that forever. Like, that's fine. But if you, there's sometimes where you like the person, but you don't respect them. And you don't respect, like you don't believe they can get the job done and they shouldn't be there. That's tough.

That's really tough. Honestly, my only. advice for that is to shut up to stop talking about it, stop trying to spread it with your teammates, with your colleagues. I know it's never helped. That's the natural reaction is to just instantly like, man, this guy's terrible. Like, what are we doing? And then, but when you do that, everyone else around you sees that and there's a trickle down effect and it affects your whole team. So I know I've been guilty of that in the past and I've had to catch myself back up. All right. Like, hey man. Or like if a young guy comes to you, like, man, why would coach have us do

it like this. Like sometimes there'll be teams where coaches say your linebacker coach tells you one thing. But then another coach comes and tells you to play it a different way. I'm like, all right, what do I do here? Like what? Okay. Here we go. So you try to figure that out. And I've heard like young, young guys at times, we're like, man, can you believe this man? Like getting mad at a coach. And I'd be like, hey, let's just do our get, do our job, man. Like don't put yourself out of position. But if the coach is asking us to do something, that we need to do whatever we can to do it the way he wants us to do it. Now, if that puts us in a terrible position, then we're going to have to talk about it.

After the game, we're going to have to go and talk to the coach and say, hey, man, like, coach, show them the film. Like, look what you're asking us to do. It's not going to work. That's the only thing I could, I can say and try to just not spread it because it's not going to help the team. Like, if you're going to continue to say how bad this person is, they're not good at their job, trust me, I bet most people there know it, especially if they're like a high performer,

they know that that guy's a turd up there and that eventually something's going to happen. So I don't think it helps to spread that throughout the group because they already know. Yeah, I think that's really good advice. I mean, do your job. Do do as best you can. If you lead a team, you know, lead a team as best you can, despite that. Sometimes teams win despite their coaches or their general manager. Like it happens sometimes.

Try to be one of those people. Try to be one of those leaders. We're going to win despite it. Pistol, what about you in the business world? like we're not naming names or anything but you know everyone has to deal with this from time to time yeah well the good thing about being in a situation where there might be people above you that you don't necessarily have the greatest feelings for is i i have found that i learn more from them than those that are great um because i i i literally think about oh this is a searing memory i'm going to

make sure i don't let this ever creep into my leadership can i cut you off quick yeah yeah ask you a question I I that got me thinking I have I have notebooks that I've kept from college on from that I keep like from football and it's all like my installs and playbooks and then also like when I'd sit in special teams meeting I'd write my kids letters and write journal like all that kind of stuff I have a ton of them I have pages and pages of what not to do of that mistakes that coaches are you still have like screenshots send some pictures I don't like the coaches I don't like the coaches names. But yeah, like when I would see, especially as I got older in the league, when I would see stuff that was just dumb or was not going to work or didn't work, I would take note of it. And I would write it down because it's true. Like you learn so much of what not to do. Like you really, because the truth and what you're supposed to do, it's pretty simple. Like, hey, man, do your job, show up on time, be consistent. Yeah, it's easy to say it's harder to do. But you do learn a lot when people are making mistakes because like, hey, man, like, okay,

I know, hey, if this ever comes back, like, don't do it this way. Don't handle it like this person did it. So I'd like to write that stuff down. So, you know, our family friend for all three of us, Rex Caswell, you know, he gave me my first job. He took a shot on me. He didn't have to. He did us a favor, mainly because he's probably friends with you.

But that's also like really motivated me to prove Rex right. But one of the great pieces of advice he gave me right when I was brand new. And I had literally no idea what I was doing. I was just a football guy who was now like trying to actually figure out how to work. He's like, look, you're going to become a manager someday. I'm certain of it. I love your leadership skill and ability. You're not ready yet.

But there's one thing I want you to do. And Rex may not even remember him telling me this, but I still have the notebook. He'd say, get a notebook and put a line down the middle of it. And on the one side of it, say, great stuff to do. And on the other side, say stupid stuff to do. And what it was was, I want you to write down all the great things your manager does and write down all the stupid things your manager does. You don't have to show it to me.

it's just for you so that when you become a manager, you can look at that and say, oh, I'm doing something stupid or, oh, I should do more of the things in this column, the great column. And I thought, so simple, basic. But if you don't do it, you forget so quickly when you become a manager about some of the stupid things your manager did. And now you're repeating them. And I think for anybody, like it's great piece of advice that Rex gave me that it's now a Google Doc and it also still had the notebook, but just lying down the middle, good stuff, dumb stuff, write them all down so that when you get promoted, you're like, oh, wait, I'm doing some of the dumb stuff that I said. So anyway, go ahead. That's a great, great point age. We go ahead, pistol. And not to mention when you write a

book someday, some of that stuff will make its way into the book for sure. Definitely did. And definitely did. I'm certainly that. I think when you are faced with that situation that we originally described of some leadership above you that might be not ideal, you've got to burrow in, bury yourself in mission, right? Regardless of what somebody might be saying or how they operate, our mission is usually fairly clear. What is it we're trying to accomplish? And I think if you wrap yourself in that mission, then you have a really good chance of surviving and prospering and coming out the other side in a positive place, as opposed to wrapping yourself in negativity. I've said often in my career, it is the duty of the leader to be in a good mood. It really is. And so you've got to persevere your way

through and shield your team as much as you can reasonably from things that are negative influences and just say here's our mission let's go get it let's go get it done and we will we will never be critiqued for for accomplishing our mission okay do the draft do you want me to explain what it is okay we've never done this before if you listen to j j reddick show he does this on most episodes but but what it is is each we're snake draft so the order is going to be pistol and then me then age you go twice and then back to me, then pistol goes twice, then back to me, then age. Okay. And we're going to pick, we're going to draft.

These things are fun because we can obviously see like some of the terrible picks that each other are going to make and I'll make fun of each other. And see then who can win the draft, who can draft the best. And what we're drafting today, which I think goes well with our lives are your favorite slash best sports movies. And at the end of the draft, we're going to see who has the, who had the best draft. And I have a feeling that I'm probably going to win. And so we'll have the same feeling. We'll see. We'll see.

Pistol, I think you might come in third. But we'll see because age and I have probably better taste. But we'll see when it comes to the draft. And because of that, I'm going to give you the first pick so you can take the best sports movie of all time off the board and see if it matches up. because I have my draft board. Age, did you make a draft board? Absolutely.

Pistol you did it too. Okay, so we're going to try something new. It may not work, but I think it could. We're going to draft our favorite sports movies. Pistol, you go first, then I'm going to go. Then age, you're going to get two, and then it's back to me. Good? Okay.

I'm drafting the movie that, I'll go ahead. You can share a little bit of your why behind it and all that, too. Go ahead. My first pick, I'm drafting a movie that I will absolutely say I sobbed like a child during the movie, especially at some of them when some of the key music was playing and the terrible thing that happened to one of the players in the movie was happening. I am quite confident neither one of you would have picked it at all because you weren't born. But the movie is the original version of Brian's song starring James Kahn and Billy D. Williams. I vividly remember

that was made in 1971 when I was in a freshman dormitory three years later, Brian's song was was shown on ABC and there was a room full of guys watching Brian's song. And at the end of the movie, it was worse from a sobbing standpoint than when Ryan and I walked out of saving private Ryan and we both ducked into the restroom so we wouldn't see the other one wouldn't see us crying. Brian's song, I loved it. My favorite all-time movie is a movie that was not on my draft board. Age, yours? Definitely not on my board, but I have seen it. It's very sad. I would not. choose a sad movie probably to be my best sportsman. And you probably could have got it in the fifth round because you know we're not taking it. But you want to, I don't think you're going to take any.

You wanted to be the number one pick. So that's the number one pick. All right, I'm going first. So, wow, the number one, I didn't know if it would be here. I'm taking major league. Ricky Vaughn, Willie Mays Hayes, Hayes, Pedro Serrano, who age and I have been lucky to meet again because of age's career and this playing in the celebrity golf tournament in Lake. Tahoe. Major league, I think we first saw it when we were young. It was like my first experience with Cusswords. I think it was just, I think I've seen it at like 300 times.

And I don't know. It's almost like a perfect sports movie. So I'm going to go with Major League for my, my top pick, number one overall for me in the first round. Was that on your list of age? It was on mine. It was my top five. How could it not be on your list?

It was. I thought it was going to be a number one pick by one of you, too. Yeah, of course, and it holds up. Major League still holds up now. Absolutely holds up. All right, age, you get two. All right. See, I have a, I have a, my list is pretty serious.

But if I, I'm going to pick my first pick. So this is my first round pick. Pistols probably never seen this movie. It, I think, epitomizes what high school football is. Marcy Blue's. Darcy Blue's. Tweeter, Johnny Moxon, John Voight, go pack, whatever his name is.

What's the coach's name in that? Oh, I can't believe. John Boyd. He's the best. Like the whole movie. Kilmer. Kilmer's coyotes. Kilmer.

Bud Kilmer is he, John Boyt is the head coach in that beautiful movie. People try to ask if it's realistic. Well, it's not realistic of Ohio football that I took part in, but maybe somewhere in the country, it's very realistic but man i think it's awesome there's like serious football moments there's sad moments when the big dude gets hurt right he gets knocked out cold all kind of stuff in there that it's very funny so yeah varsity blues is my first one now i get two yeah snake so you get too that's a that's a

tough that's a tough loss i was i wanted that okay go ahead that's always my my football go-to movie my second one i am going to have to take i got a few on here that i know neither of you would ever have on your boards. So I can save those. I will save those. You know what I'm going to do? My second one, Tin Cup.

Oh, wow. I had that high too. Dead gone on it. Wow. Best golf movie ever made. I doubt they'll ever be one to top it. So now it's my turn. Age picks Ting Cup.

Firstly losing Ting Cup. So I'm not surprised that we have similar movies at the top of our draft board. I am going to stick with the football movie that, rivals varsity blues as potentially 1A and 1B is the best football movie ever, and that's obviously the program. Oh, dang it. And one of the reasons why I thought it would be good to talk about the program is because age Alvin Mack and Latimer before a game would hit each other's

shoulder pads and spit in each other's mouths. And the reason I wanted to bring that up is because that was part of your pregame ritual with the great Brady Pupinga and you were roommates before games and you would do the pushups with no shirts on, spitting each other's mouths and hit each other's shoulder pads on game day. So I just had to pick the program because that's what you do. The program is I should that should have been my second pick in the first round. I should have done the program. I don't know why it didn't. It's a great movie. That is not anywhere near accurate of anything that I ever did. Spitting in other people's mouths. Never had.

happened especially the COVID era. I doubt that's frowned upon now. But yeah, people still reference Alvin Mack in Latimer, though, in the NFL every single day, I'm sure. When I was playing, we would always talk. Guys would kick bars. You get done cleaning. You kick the bar like Latimer would.

Like, that movie has so many, like, iconic moments, I think, where anyone who's played football or just any human alive should at least say, man, this is, this is pure entertainment, this whole movie. Yeah, place at the table. Yeah. That's, that's you and Brady. Okay, so that's my second. So Pistol, you get two now. I get two. Okay. My second pick is one. I think I am drawn more to the drama movies, the clutching emotional films. I am choosing Field of Dreams from 1989. Kevin Costner, James Earl Jones. Dad, can we have a catch? The ghosts going back out into the outfield. I love Field of Dreams. That's my second choice. I actually had it on my board.

All right. Pretty good movie. It was low, but it was on the board. So I don't know if age had it. What do you think? Field of Dreams. It's good. Wait, did he just pick two or just one?

He picked Field of Dream. Just one. That's his first. He gets one more. Yeah. I have a feeling he's going to take one of mine here. What's your second pick, Pistol? So this is your third round draft pick.

Yeah, my third round draft pick. And you guys have taken two of mine that were in my top five, I will note with Major League and Ten Cup. But my third pick is the original. Rocky. Rocky one. So I think Rocky one's the best. The best of all the Rocky ones the best of all the Rockies. In my opinion, it is. Yeah, it created the story. All right. Okay. Underdog, the ultimate underdog. Rocky Babo, Apollo Creed. Yeah. So let me see if I'm going to, my, my next slot on my board is still here. I'm wondering, I might tweak it a little bit here. So I am going to. to go and pick the legendary Jimmy Dugan, manager in the movie, the major, or a league of their own.

So, league of their own, Tom Hanks. Oh, do you have it on there? Yeah. Yeah, Doddy Henson, Henson, Henson, Dottie, so, you know, the catcher. I think a league. Marla Huch. Marla Huch, yeah, a league of their own is,

I've probably seen that one a million times. It's on constantly. just the his managerial skills are off the charts if you want to look at a leader and how to run a team jimmy dougan tom hanks is a great a great character so league of their own is my third pick trivia question on league of their own who was the third baseman third base woman on league of their own the actor donna was an outfielder she was center fielder rosy it was rosy o'd oh rosy played third i had madonna no she was outfiel rosy played third yeah got all right my board's looking pretty good so i've major league program league

of the okay pistol go ahead but it's me i'm sorry age you have two yeah age gets too age so i thought a league of their own was going to come up for me soon i thought pistol was taking a league of their own with his second pick there but uh you know what just to go i was going to wait for this i may have not put it on the board but i'm going rocky four that's my neck yeah that's what you want to talk underdog story pistol i mean he's fighting ivan drago they're juicing this way up with all the steroids you can find everything they can get in Russia and Rocky just out there carrying logs in 16 feet of snow doing hanging sit-ups off of a barn the hayloft so yeah I think it's the ultimate underdog story definitely the best Rocky it's just so

it's so good is that the one where Adrian's yelling down you can't win that right is that it yeah yeah and Drago's like a little break yeah yeah I thought he was I thought Drago was in the room with us here So fun fact about that movie, my first game, my freshman year, they didn't let us go home after school. They said, go to a room. We're going to feed you lasagna, serious. And we watched Rocky Four. And then we went down to Cincinnati O'Kills and play that game and beat those guys. Rocky Four was a movie we watched.

Pretty cool. Pretty cool. Rocky Four soundtrack was played in a locker room before games my whole career in high school. Yes. That's the only thing that's allowed to be played. Yes. Our age, you get one. I do.

Okay. See, I got, I put down like 15 movies because I was, I was going to take more. What are you going to take? You know what? I'm going to throw it out. So this is my fourth round pick, my fourth pick. Yeah. And I get five.

I'm going to tell. This is the true underdog story. So I don't think either you guys have this on your board. It's not exactly a sports movie, but it was in my eyes. The movie, these young gentlemen and a few ladies, I believe, had to face just unbelievable. odds. They found a way through cannibalism and just sheer grip. Live? Live. Yes, the rugby team that crashed. It's a true story. They crashed. Multiple

people died. They had to start eating each other's hamstrings. They found a way, I think, like 14 of them ended up living when some people hiked for two weeks straight to find somebody to get a helicopter to fly over and pick up the rest of them. So alive is just a, I guess it's a sad but inspirational story. Oh, that's good. That's good. I'm not. I'm not sure it's a sports movie. I don't know if that counts, but I guess the rugby team. That's how they came together. We saw leadership. They're a rugby team. Is that what they are? Yeah, they were a rugby team and it's a true story. That's kind of like his diehard or Christmas movie. Yeah. Yeah. I'm good with that. I'm good with it. Okay. All right. Okay. So alive. All right.

So definitely not on the board. I'm going to go for one that I'm guessing should be on your boards if it's not. think back to the limousine being driven out on the ice for a bunch of misfits who aren't very good. Their coach who gets a DUI had some trouble becomes one of the greatest sports movie coaches of all times. That's obviously Emilio Estevez and the movie is the Mighty Ducks. The Mighty Ducks is my fourth round pick. Not the movie I thought you were describing there. What are you talking about? What other movie who has a limousine driving on the ice?

I'm not going to, well, the coach who's a drunk, that was a part that got me. Yeah, that's a different move. I'll hold on to it in case I need it later. Emilio Esvarez, he's from Dayton, right? And he's also an awesome, an awesome youth hockey coach. So, yeah, I think, I think that's, I'm glad that that's, that's more fourth round pick, Mighty Ducks. Brothers have, brothers have made it into, under our boards here with two different picks, Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estavis. Yeah.

That's good point. Yeah, and they're both on my team. So that looks good for my board. Okay, so that means pistol. You get your final two picks, fourth and fifth round pick. Speaking of the ice, my fourth pick is the movie Miracle that chronicle the unbelievable underdog story of the American hockey team. Herb Brooks, who can forget the locker room scene, they might beat us nine times out of

10, but not tonight. Not tonight. Miracle is my fourth. Not bad. Not bad. Okay. And closing out, closing out my picks is a loosely related sports movie, but a sports movie all the same. Jerry McGuire. I didn't have that one on there, but Tom Cruise in a sports movie. Yeah. Right. Tom Cruise, legendary recording that recently came out with him. I guess when this podcast comes out, it won't be recent anymore but wow impossible movies make it I think we know who's in charge of the Tom Cruise movies

Jerry McGuire pretty good pick wow so this is my last pick this is tough I'm going to go for one that's probably not on your boards but should be and that is the legendary Arnold Schwarzenegger in

pumping iron pumping iron pumping iron documentary that's a movie a documentary is a movie and that age you obviously loved pumping iron and and it was motivated us to get in the wait room not do the stuff that he necessarily did but there are a lot of classic lines from that movie it's a great documentary which still counts but i'm gonna go i picked it a little bit lower on my board but i'm bringing it up to my to my fifth and final pick to round out my squad to make sure it's i i'm evening it out with sports and where I'm grabbing from. I'm going to go number five is pumping iron. It's a good one.

That's a great documentary. I think it's a great thing too for people that haven't seen it to go back and watch and just see Arnold's personality. How like cocky and confident that dude was and his story is unbelievable. What an awesome, awesome doc. I'm probably rewatch it. Absolutely. All right. So the last pick of the draft, pick number 15, age, your fifth round pick. What are you going to go with? All right. So I thought of throwing in a movie like Ace Ventura. He's, and claiming it was the dolphins. Oh, that would have been good. That would have been good.

Yeah, Dam Reno's in it. It's got to be a sports movie. You've got to call it that. I'm going to put that one on the back burner, a little more serious, dramatic movie that is somewhat involved with football, the last Boy Scout. Damon Wayne,

that leaves, is running down the field with a ball and pulls a gun out and shoots a guy on the field, right? Is it Damon Wayne's who does it? I don't know. I need to rewatch this as well, but the last Boy Scout is awesome.

So remember, remember the Titans is still on the board and he grabs the last Boy Scout. That was an upset. I thought you were going to go for like a feel good leadership. We got Caddyshack out there. We had Rudy out there. People are so bad. In fact that Rudy is out there too.

I get Rudy, whatever. But Caddyshack, yeah, actually, that's probably a miss on one of us. Whatever. Who cares? It's our picks. That was it. That rats out the first draft. Thank you guys for investing so much time to prepare for the most

important part of the show, which was us picking our meaningless favorite sports movies. It was great to close. Obviously, thank you. It's number 400. And I expect us to do number 500. Again, age, how long until that will be? Just like one year, right? Yeah. So I'll try to pump out 100 episodes in a year, even though my cadence has been one a week. But I'll try to up that to make sure I make ages math right. But thank you guys for doing this. It was fun. I'm already looking for to do it again. As you can tell, I feel very lucky to have the family that I have. And certainly it's so much fun to turn on the microphones and talk with my dad and brother once

again to celebrate another monumental episode. I've been podcasting now for six years and 400 episodes. And it is absolutely wild to say that and to think about. what I was doing when this started and what's going on now. I never would have ever dreamed that this would be my full-time work. I started it after earning my MBA as just a way to continue my education and create my own leadership PhD program and choose my own professors never with a thought that it would lead to my life's work.

And the primary reason that it's able to happen. and that I'm able to live a life of following my curiosity and recording those conversations and sharing them with all of you is because of you, because of you listening, because of you telling a friend or two, because of you writing a review and rating the show and Apple podcast because of your support. I am so grateful that you do that. and I try my best to get better at this and to continue to be a value-added resource in your life because you're choosing to invest your most valuable resource in me.

And trust that I'm going to bring on good guests, ask quality questions, ask even better follow-up questions to hopefully bring some value to your life. and I promise I will continue working at that to get better and better each time I do it. That is my goal is to see improvement and to add value to your life. And I'm confident that if that continues to happen, that what I do, this will continue to be my life's work. And so I just want to say once again, thank you so much for spreading the word, for writing a review, for telling friends, for sharing this publicly. because you continue to do that. You give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis.

And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so much. Talk to you soon.